


the sink to wash away the blood

by jaekyu



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6992329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian Kang works in Narcotics. After his partner is injured and is forced off-duty, he gets a new one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sink to wash away the blood

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Раковина, в которой смывается кровь](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12921768) by [lieutenant_cloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieutenant_cloud/pseuds/lieutenant_cloud)



> so i thought to myself that brian and sungjin would look hot in button-downs and shoulder holsters, so i wrote a fic where they're narcotics detectives. no one to blame but myself i guess.
> 
> this fic has a few things i want to warn for so bear with me: as i said, brian and sungjin work narcotics so i mention drugs with a decent amount of frequency. specifically weed and and cocaine. there is no drug use in the fic itself. there is, however, brief mentions of alcoholism and brian smokes a lot because that's a troubled detective cliche i couldn't ignore. i should also mention there's some violence here, a decent amount of it gun related. finally, i'll tell you all there is a MILD, VERY MILD amount of bloodplay that i'm really only mentioning if it's an extreme squick for you because it's barely a thing.
> 
> otherwise, i hope you enjoy.

because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die  
(TITUS ANDRONICUS)

you cannot have an opponent if you keep saying yes.  
(RICHARD SIKEN)

 

 

1.  
Cards on the table, every suit and face shown, there are only three real reasons anybody does anything:

They’re bored;

They’re angry;

They’re being offered money.

For Brian, it’s a mix of the three.

 

 

2.  
Jaebum drops a folder in front of Brian, perches himself on the corner of Brian’s desk and crosses his arms. “Meet your new partner,” Jaebum says. Brian knits his eyebrows as he picks up the folder, eyes looking it over quickly. “Park Sungjin, fresh from the detective's exam. Got a good score too.”

“Doesn’t seem like my type,” Brian decides, shutting the folder and attempting to hand it back to Jaebum. “Jackson’s not coming back?”

“Jackson’s nursing two bullets wounds to the shin and a shattered knee cap - so no, not any time soon,” Jaebum refuses the folder, “keep it,” he insists, sliding off the edge of Brian’s desk and returning to his office.

 

 

3.  
Sungjin’s the kind of detective who got into the job because he believed in heroes. Brian can tell right away. It’s in the way he carries himself, in the way he slides his gun into his holster, the way he slides his holster one arm through the other. Sungjin’s a detective because he believes in how much one person can make a difference, Sungjin believes he needs to do his part to make the world a better place.

Brian hates detectives like that. They’re always so self-righteous. Always on the straight and narrow, always think they know what’s best. Those kind of detectives always say they’d step in the way of a bullet and Brian, always expected Brian to do the same.

Those kind of detectives always told Brian he was going to kill himself every time he lit up a cigarette.

“There’s an old proverb,” Brian replies, exhaling a cloud of smoke, “that says some shit like, like: if you fear death, you’re already dead,”

 

 

4.  
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” Brian says. He cracks all five of his knuckles one after the other. “A guy walks into a bar,”

“Brian,” Sungjin chides. They’re watching the door of a warehouse not move. It’s dark and quiet outside and much like the door nothing else this night seems to be moving either.

Brian has his feet up on the dash, digging tomatoes out of his sandwich and balling them up in napkins. “Oh, you’ve heard this one before?”

“No, I just think -” Sungjin starts. He sits so straight in the driver’s seat of their car, hands folded in his lap. He won’t let Brian turn on the radio or tap out rhythms against the centre console. “Shouldn’t you be paying attention?”

Brian rolls his eyes, taking a large mouthful of his sandwich. “You underestimate the amount of time we just spend fucking around on stake-outs. Relax, eat your sandwich and let me have a cigarette,”

Sungjin looks wearily at Brian, out of the corner of his eye. His gaze snaps back to the warehouse door quickly, finding that nothing has changed. There’s no wind tonight to even rustle the bushes. Sungjin sighs, sinking down in his seat just a little.

Brian smiles, digging in the plastic bag at his feet to hand Sungjin a sandwich. Sungjin takes it, still apprehensive as he pulls the plastic off from around it and takes a modest first bite. Brian rolls down the passenger window a crack and lights a cigarette.

“Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” He repeats, “a guy walks into a bar.”

 

 

5.  
They’ve been trying to bust this coke dealer for almost a year now. He’s an Italian with mob connections, they think, and a lot of cold trails to send them on wild goose chases and leads with no real substance that he plants within his impressive network of subordinates.

Brian’s been on the case for six months, himself, and it existed in the bureau in some capacity for at least four months before that.

“We’ve made arrests twice,” Brian fills Sungjin in, digging through a box of old files. He’s got a stack beside his desk of everything they’ve ever found, whether it was worth cataloguing or not. Brian’s never not buried in paperwork with this case. Spends more time doing paperwork then he does in the field.

“What happened?” Sungjin asks, confused.

“Evidence goes missing,” Brian shrugs, “the judge thinks we don’t have enough to convict, we hold him for as long as we can with nothing substantial. Then he gets to walk out of here like it’s nothing.”

“You think he’s got someone on the inside?” Sungjin says. He says it hushed, eyes darting around.

“Relax,” Brian claps him on the shoulder, digging in the muscle with his thumb to loosen Sungjin up, “but yeah, probably. Narcotics does have a reputation for being pretty crooked.”

“They told me that before they assigned me here,” Sungjin flips absently through the box of files Brian has opened, fingers flicking across tabs marked with dates.

“There’s a lot of money in drug rings,” Brian shrugs. He picks up the top of the box off of his desk and slides it back on top, letting Sungjin lift the box after it’s closed and place it with the others. “And money talks, especially on this salary.”

 

 

6.  
The coffee at the station is shit. Brian pours himself a cup, it steams and warms his hand through the sides of it. Brian sips the coffee, cautiously, and then defiantly pours his cup out into the sink. It tastes like tar, thick and heavy on his tongue and down his throat.

Brian is awake now, if nothing else.

“How’s your new partner?” Jaebum appears through the door of the station break room. He’s wearing the same tie as Brian, Brian notices as Jaebum crosses the room and picks the coffee pot off the burner.

“He’s fine. One of those knight in shining armor types. Belongs in Violent Crimes or something, where he can play the hero,” Brian hums. Jaebum pours himself a cup of coffee, sips it and winces. “It tastes like shit.”

“He requested Narcotics, according to his file,” Jaebum looks at the coffee sloshing in his cup. “Who the fuck made this?”

 

 

7.  
They get a lead that there’s a drop off happening tonight, at an apartment on the ugly side of town, where the sidewalk is dirty and the city doesn’t want to waste any money re-paving the roads.

Sungjin drives them their just as the sun sets, parking them behind a collection of densely leafed trees and killing the headlights and then the engine. Brian unbuckles his seatbelt and settles himself more comfortably into the passenger seat. He runs a hand through his hair.

Sungjin is less high-strung on stake-outs these days. He unbuckles his seatbelt and produces a bottle of water, offering it to Brian before Brian declines and Sungjin takes a sip of it himself.

“What happened to your last partner?” Sungjin asks, pulling the bottle away from his lips.

Sungjin has never asked Brian about his before. Sungjin has kept his questions to the case they’re working and not much else, besides asking if he’s following directions properly and asking Brian what he takes in his coffee. Brian looks at Sungjin, eyebrow raised in surprised.

“Jackson Wang,” Brian replies after a few seconds, “we busted this transfer of product at the docks a few months ago. Things got ugly, Jackson took a couple slugs to the shin for his trouble and tumbled down a few flights of stairs, broke his knee into a million and one pieces.”

“I’m sorry,” Sungjin mumbles.

“Don’t apologize,” Brian pulls his hands into the cover of his sleeves. The weather is starting to get colder, the harshness of winter on it’s way to cut through the lasting warmth of fall. “It comes with the job. Jackson knew what he was getting into.”

Sungjin quiets. He puts his hands on the steering wheel, flexing his palms around it nervously. _Do you,_ Brian thinks, then he reaches over and takes a swig of Sungjin’s water bottle.

 

 

8.  
The lead ends up being fuck all. Brian isn’t surprised.

Sungjin drives Brian home. A tiny studio apartment a few blocks away from the station. Down the road to the left is a coffee shop where the owner is fond of Brian, slips him free chocolate croissants when he goes in in the morning from time to time. To the right is a coin laundromat and an old pub run by a grumpy old man who only carries three types of beer on tap.

Brian slides out of the car unceremoniously, turning back and tapping on the car window. Sungjin rolls the window down and Brian leans through it slightly. “Next time,” he tells Sungjin, “come out for a drink with me after.”

Sungjin looks confused. His hands do the same thing that they did earlier: tighten and loosen on the steering wheel of the car.

“Relax,” Brian says, the word familiar coming out of his mouth directed towards Sungjin. “It’s a thing partners do. You’re my partner.”

 

 

9.  
Their case against the Italian coke dealer goes cold for awhile.

Jaebum sends them to go bust a kid who’s been selling weed out of his high school locker for a few months. They’re not going to do much, just confiscating the stash. Putting the kid in cuffs and taking him down the station to try and scare some sense into him.

When they release the kid into his parents custody Jaebum comes up behind Brian and Sungjin, who are standing side by side in the long hallway that leads to the station's exit, and puts his hand on both their shoulders. “Finish up your paperwork,” Jaebum tells them, “and take the rest of the night off. I don’t have shit all left for you two to do.”

 

 

10.  
They don’t go to the decrepit pub by Brian’s house. There’s a medium traffic bar a few streets down from the station and so that’s where Brian takes Sungjin when he invites him out for a drink.

The bar takes cash only and there’s names and dates and profanity carved into the wood of every single table but the beer tastes okay and it’s cheap and no one wants to start fights with them just because they’re cops. Brian orders them two beers and finishes half of his rather quickly.

Sungjin watches Brian swallow his beer, sour down his throat but warm as it settles in his gut, and he looks surprised.

“My dad was an alcoholic,” Brian explains, “it was really easy to sneak booze away from him. I have a pretty good tolerance.”

“I’m sorry,” Sungjin starts. Brian puts his hand up to stop him before he finishes.

“Stop,” Brian commands, “apologizing for shit that wasn’t your fault. Especially stuff that’s already happened. You get stuck in the past like that.”

Brian sees Sungjin’s mouth start to form around another apology but Sungjin quickly corrects himself and simply says, “okay,” instead.

“Everybody’s family is a little fucked up,” Brian mumbles around the lip of his glass, taking another sip of beer. He angles his glass towards Sungjin, “even you, I bet.”

Sungjin shrugs, “I grew up fine.” He explains, fingers drawing lines down the condensation on the side of his glass, “went to private school, got good grades.” Brian listens quietly, sipping from his glass every so often. “A few years ago my parents divorced, that’s the worst it’s ever gotten for me, I guess.”

“See,” Brian mumbles, “even you.”

A silence stretches between them. The bar is filled with chatter and the clinking of glasses. Brian finishes his beer and orders a second.

“So,” Sungjin starts, dragging out the syllable to ease the awkwardness in the air, “how’s the case coming? Back on it again tomorrow?”

Brian shakes his head, mouth full of beer. “No, no, no,” he says after he swallows, “I didn’t invite you out for a drink to talk shop. The case, Sungjin, is literally the last thing I want to talk about.”

 

 

11.  
They drink a lot. Brian nurses more beers then he can keep track of and Sungjin tries to keep up. Brian buys them two sets of whiskey shots and smokes half his pack of cigarettes. Sungjin’s face gets very flushed when he drinks, it spreads to his neck and chest and the top of his shoulders. Maybe further, but that’s all Brian can see.

They’re at the bar until last call. When the bartenders loud and commanding voice rings out for the last drink orders they decide to leave. Brian stumbles out of the door with Sungjin following him. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and breathes deep.

“I am,” Brian slurs, “fucked up.”

Sungjin waits patiently for Brian to steady himself, hand against the outside wall of the bar. Brian pulls his nearly empty package of cigarettes out of his coat pocket, props a cigarette in his mouth.

They walk down the street close to the wall of the bar. Brian keeps the pads of his fingers running along the bricks. He’s halfway through his cigarette when Sungjin looks at him, asks, “can I try?”

Brian cocks an eyebrow. “Hmm?” he hums, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his lips.

Sungjin motions to Brian’s mouth. “Can I try?”

Brian shrugs. “Sure,” he agrees. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, offers it to Sungjin perched between his two fingers. Sungjin takes it, carefully and a little clumsily. Brian doubts Sungjin has ever even tried smoking before. That’s not a private school kid thing, is it? Smoking was for kids who were mad at their parents.

Sungjin looks a little intimidated as he watches the ash burn away at the tip of Brian’s cigarette. They’ve stopped walking, standing between two street lamps in the dark. There’s only the ghosts of street lights around them, the silver light of the moon and the bright orange of Brian’s cigarette. Everything else around them is inky black.

The alcohol takes the edges off the world, makes the harsh lines of things turn fuzzy. That’s probably the only reason Sungjin has asked for Brian’s cigarette to begin with. Brian watches Sungjin carefully put the cigarette in his mouth and inhale. Too deeply, Brian can tell just by watching.

Sungjin sputters, coughing out clouds of smoke. He doubles over and Brian laughs quickly, before he’s putting both hands on Sungjin’s shoulders. He kneads his thumb into the muscles there, much the way he did some time ago.

“Relax,” Brian tells Sungjin quietly.

Sungjin finds his breath eventually, chest slowing and standing upright again. “That was bad,” Sungjin says, offering Brian his cigarette back.

“Like this,” Brian tells Sungjin, taking his cigarette and showing Sungjin the slow intake of breath Brian takes around it. Shows him the slow exhale, watches as Sungjin watches the smoke leave Brian’s mouth and stretch out its tendrils towards the sky.

Brian offers Sungjin it again. Sungjin leans forward, mouth parted slightly. Brian almost gasps, reeling himself back at the last moment. He lifts his hand to Sungjin’s mouth and drops the cigarette against Sungjin’s bottom lip. Brian lets his hand fall and his fingers graze against the skin of Sungjin’s mouth. It’s soft, warm and wet.

“Breathe in slow,” Brian tells Sungjin. They’re standing so close. Brian still has a hand on one of Sungjin’s shoulders. Sungjin does as he’s told. “Now out,” Brian directs. Sungjin pulls the cigarette from his mouth and breathes out into the air above them. Brian watches Sungjin’s throat muscles move.

It’s dark, so dark. The darkness closing in around them with light just catching their edges. Brian surges forward, messily presses his lips against Sungjin’s. Sungjin’s mouth is soft but the kiss isn’t. It’s all teeth, all hard presses against each other and gripping at each other with the sharp bones of their fingers.

Sungjin makes a noise of surprise in the back of his throat. He tastes like beer mixed with nicotine, his tongue in Brian’s mouth is a pleasant weight. Brian puts his hand around Sungjin’s neck and grips the hair at the back of Sungjin’s neck.

Sungjin groans. Brian’s half finished cigarette drops from his fingers and onto the sidewalk.

 

 

12.  
Brian takes Sungjin to his apartment and sucks him off. Sungjin’s come mixes with the nicotine and alcohol in Brian’s throat.

After Brian ruts off against Sungjin’s leg, he tells Sungjin he’s going to go shower.

“I should go,” Sungjin says. The alcohol starts to slip from them tonight and with it the world comes back into sharp focus. Brian’s apartment has the lights on, there is no hiding in the darkness.

“Okay,” Brian replies lamely, “you can go.”

“See you tomorrow,” Sungjin closes the door behind him.

 

 

13.  
Brian’s throat is raw and his mouth tastes like shit. Like stale and metal. It reminds him of the taste of blood. He pours water from the cooler in the station’s kitchen and sloshes it around his mouth.

He leans over the sink to spit it down the drain and when he comes back up - Sungjin is in the room with him.

“Hey, I -” Sungjin starts.

Jaebum pushes himself into the room around Sungjin. “Just the dynamic duo I was looking for,” Jaebum says, arm outstretched one way towards Brian and the other way towards Sungjin. “I have a lead for you two,”

The conversation Sungjin meant to start is left hanging between himself and Brian. He does not try to start it again when they’re alone.

 

 

14.  
The lead takes them to infamous dock. Brian wonders if Jackson’s blood will still stain the wood beneath their feet or if someone bleached it out or the water washed it away.

They sit for about forty-five minutes in silence, their car parked as inconspicuously as possible behind a tower of crates and empty oil drums. Brian listens to the waves lap against the pillars of the dock below them and listens to Sungjin breathe in and out beside him.

Just as the light blue of early night hits them, Sungjin straightens and says, “Brian,” urgently.

Brian lifts his head in time to see a sleeve disappear behind the back door of the building they’ve been watching.

 

 

15.  
They go in without backup. It’s just supposed to be a standard exchange, no big wigs or anyone too dangerous involved. Just another dealer to put behind bars that won’t take much time to replace.

It’s frustrating but they can only do what they can.

Brian follows Sungjin, slipping through the same door as the kid from earlier as quietly as they can. The building is full of extra security measures for boating in boxes. Some of them are labeled with emergency rafts and some are labeled with bulk orders of oars and some of them are filled with first aid kits. They each duck behind one.

Only they aren’t fast enough. The dealer, who stands illuminated in a clear circle of space in the centre of the room, catches glimpse of them just as they hide.

He doesn’t poise the gun he must be carrying on them, though. Doesn’t shout for them to come out. From their spot behind a few boxes, Sungjin and Brian both clearly hear him call out.

“Brian?” he says.

Sungjin whirls his head to face Brian, face folded in confusion. His grip tightens on his un-holstered gun he currently aims towards the floor. Brian slumps, closes his eyes, breathes out slow.

He stands, exposing himself from his hiding place and sliding his gun back into it’s holster. Out of the corner of his view Brian sees Sungjin’s eyes flicker with more confusion, with slight terror.

“Hey,” Brian calls out to the dealer, stepping around the boxes, “Frankie, what’s up?”

“Nothing, man!” The dealer, his name is Frankie. Well, his name is Francesco, named after his dad. No one calls him that. “Just doing a drop for some Irish guys, the usual.”

He advances on Brian, arms extended for a hug.

Brian punches him between the eyes and he drops like a bag of rocks, knocked out cold.

 

 

16.  
“He knew you,” Sungjin says. There is no more confusion, there is no more fear. The gaze he has levelled Brian with is filled only with determination and accusation. “Explain to me why he knew you,”

He has his gun levelled on Brian, a square shot directly to the chest waiting for Brian in the chamber. Only Sungjin wasn’t trained like that. Aim for the chest, shoot them in the leg. Don’t shoot them at all if you can help it.

“Sungjin,” Brian says softly. “You have to calm down.”

“No, no,” Sungjin shakes his head, “explain to me why he knew you.”

Brian doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. Brian has put together every piece of the puzzle for Sungjin and laid it out in front of him, now all Sungjin has to do is figure out where the last piece he’s holding fits.

“Sungjin,” Brian simply repeats, softer than before.

“Don’t tell me,” Sungjin is almost shouting, anger making sweat drip from his temples. It’s because he’s trying not to shake. They teach you that at the academy. “You’re the guy on the inside. The one destroying the evidence, the one making sure we never catch him?”

Brian sighs, defeated. He takes a step towards Sungjin, knowing Sungjin won’t take the shot on him. And Sungjin doesn’t, of course, but he punches Brian scare in the nose. Blood pours from Brian’s nose like a faucet, the hand he quickly pushes against it doing nothing to ebb the flow.

“Why?” Sungjin asks. “You’re - you work on the force, you’re a _cop_ ,”

“And cops are the good guys,” Brian interrupts, voice nasally as he blocks his nose. Blood is spilling out all over his hand, dripping onto his shirt and onto the floor. “But this is the real world and we aren’t all good guys. Good guys get paid like shit.”

Sungjin sets his jaw. He looks determined, more determined and sure of himself than Brian has ever seen him be. “I’ll tell everyone,” Sungjin threatens.

Brian takes the front of Sungjin’s shirt into his hand, spreading his own blood against the baby blue of Sungjin’s button down. “If you tell anyone,” Brian says, through hard-grit teeth, “they’ll kill you. They’ll kill you and then they’ll kill me.”

“Will you stop?” Sungjin challenges, “if I keep my mouth shut will you stop?”

Brian doesn’t know what to say. He could stop, has the capacity. But he’s been at it for so long. They caught him before he went into the academy. Because that’s what they do, find angry kids who want to be cops and offer them something better. Something to take out that anger.

They waved a wad of cash in front of Brian’s face and then he made detective and it was so easy. Evidence would disappear and stacks of bills held together by rubber bands would take their place.

No one’s talking. Brian is still gripping Sungjin’s shirt, Brian’s still bleeding from his nose. They’re both still breathing hard and still in this warehouse and still have an Italian dealer passed out at their feet.

Sungjin kisses Brian, smearing blood between them. Brian is reminded of the taste: of the nicotine and the beer and now it all mixes with his blood, marks them both in red. It’s bright and it’s harsh and it’s going to stain them both. Beneath their clothes, somewhere deep they won’t be able to scrub out.

“Okay, okay,” Brian says when Sungjin pulls away. “Okay, I’ll stop. I promise. But we gotta go. We gotta go right now.”

 

 

17.  
They both run, matching patterns of blood on their shirts.

 

 

18.  
They never catch the Italian coke dealer with the mob connections. Brian stops destroying evidence, like he promised Sungjin, but it doesn’t matter because someone else promptly takes his place.

Brian gets tired of chasing someone he knows he won’t ever catch. He asks Jaebum for someone else to take the case from him. Jaebum files it into the cold cases instead.

Sungjin requests a transfer to Violent Crimes. A fresh from the academy spunky kid named Wonpil who’s barely held his gun takes Sungjin’s place as Brian’s partner. The force will take that light from his eyes in a few months, especially in this department.

Brian was never going to be a hero.

He hopes Sungjin gets to be.


End file.
